The Invasion
by artsc
Summary: In a post-war wasteland, a provisional government is established in the ruins of a city. Beca and her team of explorers are sent out to find resources and locate threats. But the world outside the city limits holds secrets guarded by those who thrive off of chaos. Eventual Bechloe, T for language.
1. Chapter 1

_An excerpt from The Humanity Preservation Convention Agreement:_

_SECTION 7: Organization_

_[…] and we shall henceforth follow the occupations set upon us by Government Officials who will bear the label "A."_

_Survival and human exploration […] "B"_

_Defense […] "C"_

_Vital resource retrieval […] "D"_

_Numbers will be assigned to assist organization, each letter ranging from 01-99._

_After 99 people fill a letter it will become unavailable except in special circumstances._

_Those who cannot fit under classification by letter and number will be forced to leave due to supply shortages._

_Outsiders will not be granted numbers._

_Numbers will be needed for identification at any entrance, exit, and to receive rations._

_SECTION 8: Rights_

_Those classified as "A" retain the sole right to broadcast news and information when possible._

_[…]_

_All citizens must obey the rules set forth in this agreement._

_Citizens who do not obey accept that they may be expelled from the city._

_Those representatives who sign this agreement represent their classifications and any citizen who argues their representation will be allowed to represent themselves._


	2. Chapter 2

_First real chapter. It goes back a forth a lot, has a lot of background info. More plot happens soon._

* * *

01A looked down at them.

"You five are going to assess the landscape for potential resources or threats. You have one week. Do not disappoint me."

"01B, you are in charge. You will find equipment in the briefing room."

01A gave them a quick nod, signaling them to leave.

/

The briefing room was standard. It used to be a meeting room before the war. Sometimes, when the power worked, they televised news. Not that there was ever much to say.

It was usually reports on search parties not finding anything useful. If anything, 02A gave a speech about persevering.

Beca grabbed the backpack labeled 01B. It was light; it probably just had a canteen with water and a blanket. Maybe some bread.

The others did the same. A man with 08C written in his shirt handed Beca a map.

"The road signs are still up. The roads, they could be in better condition. Watch out for planes. If you see them, hide."

None of 08C's advice was new to Beca. She and the other four had been working nonstop in the training facility for three weeks before they were even considered for the mission.

08C left silently.

Chloe emptied her backpack onto the table. An empty canteen and an old, folded tent fell out.

"We'll need to find water. And more food," she said.

Beca tossed the map to Jesse.

"You're in charge of finding food. Let's go."

/

The city limit was littered with wallets and empty bottles. Chloe stepped carefully over each abandoned item, while the others continued without a second thought.

Once she crossed the line etched in the ground that marked the border of the city, she looked over her shoulder. Chloe was standing over an open wallet with a cracked ID sticking out of it.

"Come on, it's nothing," Beca called out.

"Well, actually," Benji interjected, "those are from people who leave. The city revokes their numbers and makes them leave any identification from before the war right here. So people know that they're never coming back. They're nothing more than that, an old photo on the ground."

"Thanks for the political science lesson, Benji, but we have to move. Chloe, let's go."

But she still stood there, staring at the ground.

"Fine. Jesse, find a place to camp. We'll catch up with you."

Jesse led Aubrey and Benji away and into a sparse forest.

/

"Chloe, they're gone. And we will be, too, if we stay here." Beca kicked one of the wallets and it flew a few feet before hitting the ground again, conjuring up a cloud of dust.

"No. No, they… I remember, they asked for Section 8 personal representation rights…"

"Don't you know what that means?"

Chloe didn't respond.

Beca continued.

"It means you go. When you're put here, you're in charge. Until…"

Chloe took in a deep breath, a habit that had become second nature to her.

"But we're different," Chloe said, "because we've been trained. Not like them."

"Right. Now let's go so we can continue not being like them." Beca knew better than to bring up the fact that those people were probably dead. Sure, Chloe was trained in survivor psychology, but being _right there_ with the little ID photos looking up at them changed her usual positivity. They had all gone through training. Weeks of it. Months, counting the last stretch of the war.

It wasn't her first choice. But Beca ended up being trained as a leader. Detached. Goal-oriented. Chloe was a natural choice for psychology, and Benji for camouflage and illusion. Jesse was in charge of environment analysis, which was just government language for "know your plants and don't let people accidentally kill themselves." Aubrey was their weapons expert. She could make anything kill you if you let her at it. She didn't even need anything besides her body; she was _that_ good.

When the war started, they promised to volunteer together if the time came.

It didn't.

The air raids lasted months. Then the fighting took to the seas. It wasn't long before resources started running out. People had to fight to stay alive.

The five of them were the only ones left. The rest were taken.

/

Chloe placed each step with deliberate care. It took five minutes to cross two feet of ground, but Beca wasn't about to leave someone behind so soon.

But she didn't push Chloe to go faster. That wouldn't work. She knew she had to work with her team, know their pace and keep it.

When Chloe crossed the threshold of the moat of abandoned items, she let out a sigh.

"Okay. Let's go," she said. She started to walk towards the thinning forest.

The other three weren't far ahead of them. They waited once they found a cluster of trees with enough leaves to cover them from being seen by low flying patrol planes. The war may have ended, but everyone was still wary of each other.

It wasn't hard to blame anyone. The war had done more than just tear up the world; it tore up people. Once the initial fervor of the war had worn off, people started to ask questions. Governments claimed international tension, but there was something more. They were abandoning satellites and halting space programs. Every battle ended in a stalemate. Soldiers were sent to battle and wrote back home, telling families of empty days spent patrolling and burning.

Scorched earth. It wasn't a new policy, but many would have thought that generals would have a better strategy than that. After all, the world was still tied together with trade. Destroying one producer could have disastrous effects.

In the end, it did. Population counts dropped, and then stopped trying because no one wanted to be reminded of the damage. Basic food became luxury. Locally grown meant eat what you could find. Imported meant taken from your neighbor's abandoned house.

International ties fell apart because countries stopped caring. Governments worried more about protecting themselves than the people they governed. Laws saved to computers disappeared from existence when the power finally cut out. Archived papers disintegrated because archives couldn't keep the right conditions.

By the end of the war, no country governments existed. People wandered into cities, the last remaining symbol of the world before everything collapsed.

A select few, now recognized as 01-014A, held a conference to create a provisional government. It was the closest they could get to what it was like before.

01-05B were admitted from another city that boasted a training facility, although it only had it because the government before had used a college campus as training grounds.

Beca, Chloe, Aubrey, Jesse, and Benji knew that they were only as valuable as they were competent. They organized housing projects in old office buildings and helped 03-07D with food distribution. Soon enough their efforts were recognized, and they were selected for a mission.


	3. Chapter 3

Jesse was the first to wake up. Planes flew low overhead, stirring up dead leaves and loose dirt.

"Planes." Louder. "Planes. Get up!"

Jesse started to tear down the shelter they had put up. It was just large enough to fit everyone lying down, and with a quick tug at one corner, Jesse was able to collapse the whole thing.

The continuous rumble of plane engines masked the commotion that followed shortly after Jesse's wake-up call.

"Shit, Jesse, you could have thought that through more." Beca dug herself out of the rubble and started towards Jesse.

"Yeah, we're good. The camo's fine," Benji chimed in as he crawled out. "Well, it was, before you destroyed it."

Jesse squinted at Benji. "You of all people should know that we built that in the evening. The lighting was different. It's the morning now, right? It's easier to see that this was built on purpose."

"Well so much for specialized training." Beca kicked a foot that was hanging out from the now-destroyed shelter.

Aubrey sprang up and grabbed the nearest stick.

"I'll kill- oh. We ready to go already?" Aubrey brushed some of the dirt off of her shirt and pointed her stick towards Chloe. "She up?"

Beca shook her head. "You want the honors?"

Aubrey didn't hesitate. She swung the stick up and brought it down next to Chloe's head.

Chloe jolted awake and scrambled to gather her things before even questioning what had happened.

"You know," she said quietly without looking up at Aubrey, "you hurt people because you like power. But you don't know what to do with it and it takes over and you miss your target."

Aubrey grabbed Chloe by the shirt and forced Chloe to face her.

"I never miss."

/

As they trekked through the sparse forest, Chloe continually checked behind them. Each step they took set off a barrage of sounds, any one of which could have been a survivor.

When the path was clear and easy to walk, Chloe reviewed her psychology textbook while she walked. It wasn't high end in any sense; it was one of many gathered up from a high school and shipped to training facilities across the country. The information wasn't surprising or vital, but someone with an encyclopedic knowledge of it could be helpful.

It just seemed to Chloe that her helpfulness was limited. The longer they went without finding a survivor, the less necessary she would become.

She silently diagnosed her teammates as they trained and worked. Now that they were on a mission, Chloe realized that she might not be needed for survivors, but instead her friends, the people that were so focused on the mission that they might forget to survive.

/

"It's…"

"Yeah."

They stood watching the wind blow discarded papers and uniforms around the abandoned campus.

Barden had been converted into a training facility halfway through the war. BU became the bond between many soldiers and field agents. Nearly every division was stocked with Barden recruits.

The dorms never went empty for long, each packed with more bunks than would ever pass for safe had Barden still been a college.

They applied to Barden as a team, refusing to be separated. They spent the whole week before at the edge of the city, prepping mentally for the oncoming crash course.

They spent those seven days on minimal food, minimal sleep, and maximum alert. The city guards took notice and soon enough the team had a newspaper article to back up the application.

/

They had one hour of free time every day. One hour, no more, no less. They weren't allowed into the training gyms or strategy classes during that hour due to the sheer number of people on campus.

Beca kept her laptop hidden under her bed most of the day. But during her one hour, she dug it out and picked at the dirt between the keys on the keyboard and made music.

It was what she used to do when she was at Barden as a student, at the beginning of the war when things were still normal enough to carry on life as it was before the war.

She stole blank CDs from the library when no one was there, which was most of the time. But she left them under her bed when she graduated from the training facility Barden.

/

"Let's see if there's anything here we can use," Beca said. She took off towards the dorms.

She wandered past the old classrooms and gyms. Some of the makeshift buildings were falling apart from the lack of maintenance that had occurred over the past year.

Her footsteps echoed, bouncing off the brick walls and concrete pathways.

Her dorm rose into view against the gray sky. It was the tallest building on campus, but only because three floors were added on when the administration decided to take in more recruits.

As she came closer, she saw craters in the ground. Barden was the last of the facilities to be attacked. The bombs that did the most damage were unmarked. No one could place where they came from, but after a while, no one bothered to ask why. It just wasn't worth the worry. There were more immediate concerns, food in particular.

The red bricks were stained with ash and rain. Holes peppered the walls where bombs shook the very foundation of the building and the slightest bump could send a whole foot of wall crumbling to the ground.

Even with all of the destruction, Beca knew exactly how to get where she needed to go. Up two flights of stairs, to the left, turn the corner, third door on the right, bottom bunk across from the door. Home.

/

Beca lifted the old mattress and saw the cracked CDs. She recognized her handwriting on them, even in pieces.

The bunk bed was closer to the ground than before. She used to be able to fit her laptop under it, but the feet collapsed and how the bed rested on the old carpet.

Beca bent down and gripped the metal frame. Creaks sounded from the frame and there was a crackling when it was a couple of inches off the ground.

She heard the door open and close. Soon another pair of hands held the bed, too.

"Go ahead, I got it." Chloe's voice was sincere, more aware of the importance of that moment than anyone else could have been.

Beca lowered herself to the floor and slid her arm under the bed. Plastic edges met her fingertips and she pulled out her crushed laptop. She opened the lid and the screen was black.

"It's okay," Chloe said.

"What?"

Chloe set the frame down. "It's okay. It's sad, you know, seeing that. I get it."

"No. No, you don't."

"I kind of do. That's what I'm here for."

Beca stood up and set the laptop on the bed. "No. I'm sorry, but I'm not a survivor. I'm not _broken_ like them. This?" She pointed to the cracked CDs that fell to the floor while they were moving the bed. "This is nothing."

"I know those are more than that. I saw the way you worked on them before. It's not nothing."

Beca shook her head. "I left it here because I moved on."

"Then why are you here now?"

"Okay, I don't need to be interrogated by my own team," Beca said. She kicked the bed frame for emphasis and walked out.

/

Chloe waited until Beca's footsteps faded away before forcing the disk drive of the laptop open. A CD rested on the tray with _Day 1_ written on it.

She carefully lifted it from the computer and set it on the bed. After looking around the room for a case of some sort, she settled on a stray pillowcase and wrapped the CD up before stowing it in her backpack.


	4. Chapter 4

_Okay, transition chapter here. I think chapters will come faster now, school's out and everything. Enjoy!_

* * *

They didn't take much more time exploring the campus. Every building had overturned furniture and had been ransacked long ago.

Beca did her best to shake off her memories of when Barden was alive and full of people. But nothing she did, not even getting lost and keeping Benji from overanalyzing every new landscape, could erase the image of her old equipment from her mind.

Chloe, on the other hand, seemed less than bothered by the entire encounter.

"Oh, remember when Aubrey almost stabbed Lily with her plastic knife, and you wouldn't let her use sharp objects for a week? And that time you broke into the storage closet by the gym and pelted Jesse with dodge balls because he wouldn't stop talking about different types of bird calls?"

"Chloe," Beca said, "if you keep talking, you'll set of the alarms."

Almost monthly, the government ran drills for everyone, whether or not they were designated to leave the city. According to the rules set for the drills, leftover air raid alarms were scattered everywhere, still active and highly sound sensitive.

Right before the end of the war, the old governments- all of them around the world- set up silent hours and activated the alarms, those poles jutting out from the ground with a direct line to a nationwide siren, reaching out like dirty fingers trying to shield the doomed.

The alarms were mostly useless. They told people that the loud booms were bombs and that the airplane sounds were, in fact, coming from airplanes.

The only real benefit came in reduced casualties. Countries bombed only during the silent hours. But it just put off the inevitable paranoia, starvation, and surrender of those who were saved from being blown apart by a missile.

So, knowing that any alert would send every hostile body remaining after them, Chloe ceased her one-sided conversation.

They neared a clearing. To the left, more trees. To the right, a path of tree stumps. Straight ahead, a river. It would have been perfect had it not been for the situation that brought them there in the first place.

The grass was patchy and flat. Beca kicked at a clump of grass, and a bug flew from it.

"I guess this is a good time to take a-" Beca started to say. She didn't need to continue. Jesse had already dropped his backpack to the ground and was halfway to the river.

Aubrey sighed and set her backpack next to his.

"What now, Beca? There's nothing out here but us."

Beca rocked back and forth on her heels and gripped her backpack straps. "Maybe we should head back. If we go any farther, who knows what'll be waiting for us. I mean, yeah, food would be nice, but so would be being alive."

"Really?" Benji chimed in. "Is it? Remember when just about everyone was happy to still be alive and then they all died of starvation? Remember how they suffered but kept crawling through life just because they could? Just because it was better to beat death just one more day instead of realizing that we're going to die, it's just a matter of how?"

"You've thought about this a lot," Beca said.

"Yeah. When everyone else can do things like fight or get food or whatever, I have a lot of time to think." Benji looked around and saw Jesse stepping into the river. "You know what? I think it's time I go."

"Benji, come on. Chloe, can you handle this?" Beca turned to Chloe, who hadn't said anything since Beca reminded her of the alarms.

"Bec, you're a leader. Benji, you're so important to our team. You two take it from there," Chloe said.

Benji frowned. "You're just going to go back and train and nothing's going to come of it. You're afraid."

"Yes, I'm afraid. I'm afraid because half of us are gone. Lily? Amy? They've been missing and no one has any idea what happened to them. I'm afraid of losing more of you. It's not like any of us get replaced easily. It's hard enough as it is without more people just disappearing."

"I'm sorry to hear that." Benji turned towards the path of tree stumps and walked away.

/

By the time Jesse came out of the water with three full canteens and an assortment of small fish, everyone else sans Benji was set up for the night.

"Where'd he go?"

Beca and Aubrey turned to Chloe to answer.

"Away. It's fine, we'll be fine. He'll be okay finding his way back."

/

Chloe added twigs to the fire. It was dark and it was going to be for another couple of hours at least. Her shift of keeping watch would be over soon.

She kept looking at the stumps that led somewhere she couldn't see. Just by the light of the fire, she could make out two stumps but nothing more.

"What if he's not going back?"

Chloe spun around to see Beca sitting up.

"What?"

"If he was going back, he would have gone back the way we came. I don't think he's planning on going back." Beca stood up and walked over to Chloe. "I hope he knows what he's getting into."

/

In the morning, Beca inspected the stumps. On either side of them, tread marks led straight away through the forest. It was only in the new morning light that Beca could see more, and what she saw surprised her.

"Get over here, something's up."

Louder. It took Jesse a good battle cry to wake up.

"Guys! Up, up!"

Slowly, the other three stretched and stumbled to where Beca was standing.

Chloe blinked a couple of times and knelt to examine the tracks.

"It must have been tall enough to go over the stumps, and heavy enough to leave these behind," Jesse said, running his hand over a stump. "No other damage. It doesn't seem like there's much wildlife left to harm, but these could be old. No one's been around here in a long time."

Beca got up onto a stump and looked deeper into the forest.

"Lights. Something's back there. Come on!"


End file.
